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 warboss wrote:


You forgot to add the all important "so far" to all of your sentences. It is a bit naive to think that a company that is using kickstarter to sell an EXISTING product (which is technically against the website's rules) even in one case wouldn't do so again. Also, weren't online retailers preselling (or even just selling... don't recall) the same kits as in the kickstarter for cheaper as reported earlier in this thread? I'll admit that I follow this peripherally but the whole campaign from day 1 has persistently had a fishy odor from the subpar "deals" to the attitude in posts and now to select "kickstarted" items already being available.

OK, so just to clarify, the only kit currently available for purchase that is in the Kickstarter(aside from the new rulebook, which is on pre-sale and can be purchased as an add-on or as part of the starter set deal on Kickstarter) is the Jagdluther Axis walker. This kit has been available for pre-sale on Warstore for the past month maybe and I think just became available to ship a week or so back. This model was the first wave of the Babylon campaign, so technically it is part of the Babylon Kickstarter; it is the first model of Wave 1.

Now Dust campaign expansions generally come out in 3-5 waves over several months, I think in some cases up to a year. So you aren't really wrong that all these models are existing models, we've seen photos of a number of these things for several months(some date back to GenCon 2013 I believe), some have not been seen outside this Kickstarter. Everything in this campaign was coming out anyway. All the $50,000 the goal was for was to pay for the production costs to get enough units produced to launch all at once. Otherwise, they would wait on Wave 1 to generate enough money to move on to Wave 2 and so on. Admittedly, I was a bit skeptical of this idea, but I really just prefer a quicker turn around on this stuff so we can have the models and the rules out now. A lot of us existing Dust players have been clamoring for the 2nd edition rules and the new cards and kits for about a year, so this is awesome we're getting everything by end of summer now.

If all you're looking for is a models by the shovel-full at a ridiculously low price, this Kickstarter probably isn't for you. This isn't Myth. They also didn't set their goal for that in the first place either. That said, at $150+ you currently get about over $100 worth of free stuff, so it isn't like it's just a pre-sale at retail prices either. Frankly I'm backing because there's enough free stuff to be a better deal than me waiting and buying at 30% off from Miniature Market.

And to your question about discounted items being less than Kickstarter prices, yes, since Miniature Market has always sold Dust Tactics at 30% off, that includes the new stuff. So since the Jagdluther has been released, it is 30% off. The Kickstarter items are roughly 10% off individually, but cheaper in the bundles.

Nothing about any of this is unusual. It seems you are looking for a scandal where it simply isn't.

 scarletsquig wrote:


Thanks for the info, 20% VAT on item+shipping really does murder a good deal. Interesting to know about paper books being VAT-free though, think I'll be making a few barnes and noble orders for stuff with that in mind.

If you are going through Miniature Market, it may make more sense to order a few smaller orders that bypass any customs duties. Not sure how practical that is, but might be worth looking in to.

Another thing to note for the Kickstarter, is that if you have an FLGS that stocks Battlefront products, you can have them call their Battlefront rep and place a Kickstarter pledge for you and they will ship your items direct to your FLGS for free. This works for North America, EU and AUS/NZ. This allows you to avoid shipping charges AND any potential customs duties.

 Starfarer wrote:

 warboss wrote:

And to your question about discounted items being less than Kickstarter prices, yes, since Miniature Market has always sold Dust Tactics at 30% off, that includes the new stuff. So since the Jadgluther has been released, it is 30% off. The Kickstarter items are roughly 10% off individually, but cheaper in the bundles.

Knowing Battlefront's discounting policy, I would not be surprised to see Miniature Market's discounting scheme for dust change very soon.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

 Starfarer wrote:

 warboss wrote:

And to your question about discounted items being less than Kickstarter prices, yes, since Miniature Market has always sold Dust Tactics at 30% off, that includes the new stuff. So since the Jadgluther has been released, it is 30% off. The Kickstarter items are roughly 10% off individually, but cheaper in the bundles.

Knowing Battlefront's discounting policy, I would not be surprised to see Miniature Market's discounting scheme for dust change very soon.

From what I've gathered from the KS comments section, BF has no control over Miniature Market's prices - MM seem to be working independently of Battlefront's distribution scheme. BF sounded fairly pissed about it.

~Tim?

rich1231 wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:

Oldest retail trick in the book.

Reminds me of a local FLGS retailer. He had a large travel-luggage style figure case for $220, and offers a flat 10% on all his products.

When I went to the manufacturer's website to see where else they're sold, I noticed that their MSRRP for those cases was $200....

You know in situations like that its possible the MSRRP has gone up and no one has told the retailer. This industry is astoundingly poor for product management information from manufacturers. By astoundingly poor I mean mind boggling in how poor it can be. Just to add, Bfront are one of the better in this industry but some manufacturers seem to want to keep their product information a secret.

Uh.... Rich. You might want to read that again. The MSRP was $200 and the retailer was selling them for a claimed MSRP of $220 with a "discount" of 10% off. oh, and it was like that for months. From the time they first announced the wonderful new figure cases that he was getting in from a local supplier right until he clearance them out with a "40%" discount.

It was a matter of "we offer 10% off all products" being done by raising the "RRP" of pretty much everything that's not GW/BF with an actual visible AURRP by 10%, then "discounting" it by 10% at the register. Just a dodgy small business practices older than any of us here.

I thought they were up front from the beginning that this Kickstarter is to accelerate their release schedule. Regardless of whether or not you have a strong opinion about what Kickstarter "should be used for" or whatever, this is probably the safest Kickstarter to date. It's all stuff that is going to get made and as a result of the KS, made sooner than originally planned.

Sure, it's "off" if you have an idea that KS should only be used to fund products that could not exist without it, but that's a very difficult standard for KS as a company to enforce.

 frozenwastes wrote:
I thought they were up front from the beginning that this Kickstarter is to accelerate their release schedule. Regardless of whether or not you have a strong opinion about what Kickstarter "should be used for" or whatever, this is probably the safest Kickstarter to date. It's all stuff that is going to get made and as a result of the KS, made sooner than originally planned.

Sure, it's "off" if you have an idea that KS should only be used to fund products that could not exist without it, but that's a very difficult standard for KS as a company to enforce.

What i wonder is, is this KS allowed according its guidelines?

Report it and find out. I doubt it'll get cancelled or even reviewed. There's a process before the KS launches to check if it's in accordance with the guide lines or not.

I happen to think it's legit to use KS to make a project happen in a much faster timeline. Both of Reaper's KS were exactly that. Reaper had already started making 30 different Bones miniatures before their KS launched it into the hundreds.

Kickstarter's guidelines are just that. Guidelines. Not hard and fast rules, nor are they laws of the land. Kickstarter can let whatever it likes through onto their website with any number of exceptions, and I understand that they also like money.

Let's not go down the "Kickstarter is only for projects that _____." road again. It's for whichever projects they approve to let run.

And I say this all as someone who doesn't especially like Battlefront, and has no interest in contributing to this particular campaign.

I completely agree. I always thought Dust was cool and like the idea of accelerating production by going to the fans. If I didn't have the backlog of unpainted stuff to work through, Dust would have gotten me as a customer, for sure.

I love weird WW2 and Dust does it really well. I'm also become more and more enamoured with slightly larger figures and the Dust infantry are just tall enough to be noticably bigger than 40k stuff.

 Azazelx wrote:
Kickstarter's guidelines are just that. Guidelines. Not hard and fast rules, nor are they laws of the land. Kickstarter can let whatever it likes through onto their website with any number of exceptions, and I understand that they also like money.

Let's not go down the "Kickstarter is only for projects that _____." road again. It's for whichever projects they approve to let run.

And I say this all as someone who doesn't especially like Battlefront, and has no interest in contributing to this particular campaign.

Agreed!

That would just summon RhodeIslandTides, and net us another boring lecture.

Kickstarter has these somewhat vague guidelines for a reason - it allows them a certain amount of latitude to basically do whatever they want.

Plus, since this one is already at $278K with 10 more days to go, no way are they going to give up their 5 to 10 percent cut!

Making each playable unit a separate piece is the way forward and does mean you are not just choosing one of the version you have play with. Some boxes will come with two pairs of arms or turrets and we have some two unit boxes at reduced rates coming as well but gone are the days when a single walker had four variants in the box.

This makes me sad. It was one of the biggest selling point of the original game.

 Some_Call_Me_Tim? wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

 Starfarer wrote:

 warboss wrote:

And to your question about discounted items being less than Kickstarter prices, yes, since Miniature Market has always sold Dust Tactics at 30% off, that includes the new stuff. So since the Jadgluther has been released, it is 30% off. The Kickstarter items are roughly 10% off individually, but cheaper in the bundles.

Knowing Battlefront's discounting policy, I would not be surprised to see Miniature Market's discounting scheme for dust change very soon.

From what I've gathered from the KS comments section, BF has no control over Miniature Market's prices - MM seem to be working independently of Battlefront's distribution scheme. BF sounded fairly pissed about it.

~Tim?

Whoever they're buying from has to buy from BF at some point. If BF can't lean on MM they'll lean on their supplier.

It might be a lot harder to lean on some distributors though...

Also lean too hard on a distributor/retailer with any of the old FFG stock in they system and they may dump it at very low prices

which both soaks up full price spending on the BF version, and sends a 'this game is dead' message to gamers who aren't following things too closely

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
Also lean too hard on a distributor/retailer with any of the old FFG stock in they system and they may dump it at very low prices

which both soaks up full price spending on the BF version, and sends a 'this game is dead' message to gamers who aren't following things too closely

FFG always does a yearly sale and dumps an incredible amount of older or slower product. Want the Beowulf boardgame for 5 bucks?

At some point the older dust product will go this route.

It basically comes down to: Does this seem like a decent deal to you?

Looking at the current stretch goals, it looks slightly cheaper for me then retail. Plus it helps the company directly support a game I like. So win/win.

As for the fact that one model's out, it doesn't bother me. Kickstarter is basically a pre-order for most major mini companies...

Did Warmachine need a kickstarter? Did Super Dungeon Explorder? Bones 2?

Probably not, those were basically pre-orders. The fact that Dust seemingly has most of the models ready to go is a big plus for me.

How often have we been burned by a kickstarter? Or seen it delayed for up to a year? If they're almost ready to go then I know they'll be shipping close to the goal.

Kickstarter isn't some altruistic magical web page. It's a funding system for small-medium companies ran by a massive corporation.

Are there much prospects for seeing any nuclear weapons in Dust? Perhaps a little off topic, but I'd be interested in seeing some man portable weapons, or larger mech versions. I'm just curious as it seems like the period where those kind of weapons could be in development, but given that alternative fuel/weapons have been found, nukes may have fallen by the sidelines. I've hardly played the game, so this matter may already have been handled in the fluff, and well, hell I'm just looking for another Dust model to throw in with my Fallout stuff really, but it'd be nice to know.

What would be the point? Even at only a few kilotons, a man portable nuke at the DUST scale of battle would be the equivalent of just flipping over the gaming mat and calling the game a draw.

Ah, I'm meaning more in the fluff, but as far as games go why couldn't they just scale down the weapons to something much smaller? A nuke mixed with the alien tech would be an interesting prospect for the fluff, but perhaps nuclear weapons would put an end to the style of warfare going on in the series right now (I mean great you have fancy mechs, but what use are those against a single plane that can glass the place). I suppose there's ways to defend against that kind of attack in Dust, but I'm guessing the subject's been avoided as it would just unbalance everything.

 mikhaila wrote:

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
Also lean too hard on a distributor/retailer with any of the old FFG stock in they system and they may dump it at very low prices

which both soaks up full price spending on the BF version, and sends a 'this game is dead' message to gamers who aren't following things too closely

FFG always does a yearly sale and dumps an incredible amount of older or slower product. Want the Beowulf boardgame for 5 bucks?

At some point the older dust product will go this route.

They already did.

I'm holding out for a 4th of July sale.

I'm thinking they've had them before, right?

I'll say this about Tactics- with a bit of guidance and early game hand-holding, I was able to get a pretty random selection of 7 and 8 year olds pretty well into the thick of things.

Are the new Tactics rules going to be about roughly the same?

For the Warfare/ Battlefield rules, do I at least get to spread my squads out? I wasn't a big fan of having everyone all clumped up in one square. I would assume you could to avoid area attacks. I'll have to see about printing some out when I get home.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:

 frozenwastes wrote:
I thought they were up front from the beginning that this Kickstarter is to accelerate their release schedule. Regardless of whether or not you have a strong opinion about what Kickstarter "should be used for" or whatever, this is probably the safest Kickstarter to date. It's all stuff that is going to get made and as a result of the KS, made sooner than originally planned.

Sure, it's "off" if you have an idea that KS should only be used to fund products that could not exist without it, but that's a very difficult standard for KS as a company to enforce.

What i wonder is, is this KS allowed according its guidelines?

Bring up the Kickstarter Report Menu.
Trying and find something this Kickstarter violates according to the list of violations so you can complete the action.
Close it because you can't.

Move on folks.

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:


I'll say this about Tactics- with a bit of guidance and early game hand-holding, I was able to get a pretty random selection of 7 and 8 year olds pretty well into the thick of things.

Are the new Tactics rules going to be about roughly the same?

For the Warfare/ Battlefield rules, do I at least get to spread my squads out? I wasn't a big fan of having everyone all clumped up in one square. I would assume you could to avoid area attacks. I'll have to see about printing some out when I get home.

The game is fast and simple enough for kids, with the stuff ready to go right out of the box, but I know the guys I work with are all playing and enjoying it too. Honestly this is the tabletop game we all probably should have started with when we were 10, and it's the game I'd recommend to a new player who didn't already have friends into a game, or a strong interest in a specific game or background, e.g. the kid is huge into WW2 (Flames of War is over yonder youngster!)

Battlefield is a proper table top, so dispersion's a thing, I don't remember what the command distance is for coherency on a given squad though.

Dropped out. Decided Orks more important...

UltraPrime wrote:
Dropped out. Decided Orks more important...

According to Kicktraq your not the only one...

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:


For the Warfare/ Battlefield rules, do I at least get to spread my squads out? I wasn't a big fan of having everyone all clumped up in one square. I would assume you could to avoid area attacks. I'll have to see about printing some out when I get home.

Warfare is within six inches of the squad leader I believe.

 Catyrpelius wrote:

UltraPrime wrote:
Dropped out. Decided Orks more important...

According to Kicktraq your not the only one...

I dropped mine from $170 to $1 for now. I can still pledge $150+ with a $1 pledge level and get all the free add-ons. Basically it keeps me from being tied into a specific lot and I can just buy what I want.

Besides, once they show the actual models of the new Mercenaries faction they teased in the Backer emails, people are going to start backing like crazy.

Well miniature market increased their Battlefront Dust Tactics miniature. Not by much but an increase nonetheless.

Just went in for $150 of Germans. Annoyed that there are none of the early birds left (he says with 8 days to go... but I pledged within about 20 minutes of seeing the KS, so ).

Not so fussed about the rules - just love the models.

 Starfarer wrote:

Besides, once they show the actual models of the new Mercenaries faction they teased in the Backer emails, people are going to start backing like crazy.

Looks like Paelo's girls to me. Underboob, ahoy!